Television signal distribution systems typically broadcast television signals to individual users or subscribers on a plurality of individual television channels. The channels may be modulated onto one or more carrier frequencies within a discernable frequency band. Some wireless television signal distribution systems use one or more geosynchronous satellites to broadcast a broadband television signal to receiver units within a large geographic area, while other wireless systems are land-based, using one or more transmitters located within smaller geographic areas to broadcast to individual receiver units within those geographic areas.
The receiver unit receives and processes transmitted waveforms. The receiver unit in a satellite systems typically includes a satellite dish connected by a cable to an integrated receiver/decoder unit (IRD). The satellite dish is aimed toward the satellite, and the IRD is connected to the user's television in a similar fashion to a conventional cable-TV decoder.
Along with the audio and video signals associated with the television channels, the satellite transmits various digital files such as text and graphics. These files may be used by the IRD to provide the user with additional information such as an electronic program guide (e.g., a grid of shows with start and stop times). Typically, the electronic program guide is arranged by listing all of the channels in ascending order vertically and a certain number of future half-hour blocks in chronological order horizontally. However, this presents a problem to the user. Often there may be more than a hundred channels to choose from. Scrolling through the entire list can be burdensome and time consuming. Further, the increasing the memory of the IRD in order to store the data associated with all these channels increases the cost of the IRD.